


Spark of Light

by lady_wordsmith



Series: Memories (Bucky/Reader) [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Winter Soldier (Comics)
Genre: Amnesia, Angst, Bucky doesn't like stealing, Eventual Romance, Eventually the morality will even out, F/M, Reader has significantly less moral qualms, Reader knows how to run from shit, Rescue, Theft, Trust Issues, or the other thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-02
Updated: 2016-04-02
Packaged: 2018-05-30 19:50:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6437950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_wordsmith/pseuds/lady_wordsmith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You have no idea why you've been kidnapped, or who this dude is who rescued you. All you know is that he's your only ally, and between his apparent memory loss and moral qualms about theft, you're going to have a long road ahead of you.<br/>(Or: Bucky and Reader's first meeting. Romance does not immediately ensue. Reader is kind of morally bankrupt and Bucky is still trying to feel human.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spark of Light

The first time you meet James Barnes, he’s breaking into your cell. It’s been two weeks, perhaps three since you had been kidnapped on your way home after class. You don’t know where you are, but the image of his metal arm breaking the bars of your cell… That, you’ll remember forever.

Before you have time to react, he’s putting his flesh-and-bone hand over your mouth and grabbing you with his metal arm.

“You make a noise and we’re both dead, understood?” he tells you, and you nod. “I’m getting you out of here. Stay behind me.”

He never lets go of you as he leads you through the facility, keeping your hand firmly in his as he pulls you after him. His other hand, the flesh one, holds a gun. You can’t remember him having it when he broke you out, but he must have. The two of you travel through the facility, making it down three floors before you hear blaring alarms. He curses and leads you to a window. Looking down, he looked back at you.

“Hold onto me.” He tells you, and your eyes widen.

“Are you crazy?” you ask. “We’re at least ten floors up!”

“Thirteen.” He says, almost casually, his eyes drifting to the flashing light above you. “It’s this or we die.”

Before you can react, he lets go of you, breaks the window glass with his metal hand, grabs you again, and jumps. You have no choice. You cling to him like your life depends on it, because it does.

You have no idea how you lived. But by the time you hit the ground, you’re too relieved you’re still alive and nothing’s broken that you barely notice him grabbing your hand and pulling you along as he runs as fast as he can. He’s half-carrying, half-dragging you, and if it weren’t for his hand in yours, you wouldn’t be able to keep up.

When he finally stops, you collapse onto the ground. It takes everything you have not to have dry heaves. He leans down, hesitantly, reaching out to rub your back as you try to regain your equilibrium.

You can’t stop looking at him. His eyes are blue, not bright summer sky blue, but a cloudy stormy blue that advises caution. His hair’s long and dark and falling around his face haphazardly.

“Are you one of them?” You ask him. His eyes widen slightly but he says nothing. As you watch him, he slowly drops his gun to the ground and raises his hands slightly in a gesture of surrender. He doesn’t take his eyes off of you.

He means you no harm, you decide. His rescue was really a rescue and not an attempt to get more information out of you. Right now, this man? You know without question that he’s your only ally.

“They kidnapped me. Asked me things, lots of things. Things I don’t understand.” You tell him. “I’m just a college student, I don’t know why…”

He nods, slowly.

“Did they hurt you?” he asks.

You shake your head. “No, just questions.”

“Who are you? What… what year is it?” he asks.

You tell him your name, that you’re from Boston, and that the last you knew, it was 2009, but it might be 2010 depending on how long you spent kidnapped.

“I was taking my fall semester finals when they got me.” You explain. Now that you’ve said that, you realize how cold it is. You rub your arms for warmth.

“2010? Are you sure?” he asks. His eyes are as wide as saucers now.

“Positive. Are you okay, dude?” you ask, but his eyes aren’t looking at you now. He has that look in his eye, the same look Lane had when he came home last year. Your aunt called it the thousand yard stare. Wherever your rescuer is in his head, it’s probably not good.

Then he blinks, and just like that he’s back. Looking at you, assessing for something.

“We need to get out of here.” He tells you.

“We don’t even know where here is,” you snap back.

“They’ll find us.” He says, as if he hadn’t heard your protest. “We need to get away.”

“We? What’s this we?” This guy pisses you off like nobody’s business. He talks at you, rather than to you. He’s weird, the way he seemed freaked out when you told him the year.

But he saved you.

“You can’t go back to Boston.” He tells you. “First place they’ll look for you.”

He’s right. He’s the only one you can trust right now, and he’s right. You go home, and you’re as good as dead. Your family, too, probably. You may not give many fucks about your father, but Lane and Hayden and Lila and your aunts… You can’t put them in danger.

“Where are we?” you ask again. You can tell you’re in a big city, but you’re unsure of where.

“Washington.” He tells you, with such certainty it scares you. “It was Washington last time.”

“Last time?” But he doesn’t answer you.

“We need to get out of here.” He tells you again.

Your head is racing. You close your eyes and slowly breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth a few times, the way your mother had taught you. _And in, onetwothreefourfive, and out, sixseveneightnineten._

“We have no money. No way to leave. And you need less conspicuous clothes. Both of us do.” You sigh, and think. You’re wearing the thinnest, most ill-advised clothes for the winter known to man, and your rescuer is wearing body armor. You hate the idea in your head, but it’s necessary. “I’ll handle it. Just give me an hour. How close are we to some kind of crowd?”

“A few blocks.” He tilts his head in the direction you need to go.

“Walk with me. We look out of place, but this is easier with a partner. Just watch and learn.”

* * *

 

In an hour you’ve managed to lift four wallets by yourself. Your rescuer manages five once you explain the art to him. You pick his targets and distract them while he snatches their wallets. You decided, watching him work, that he would be a quick study. Back in the day, before Lane got told that it was jail or the Navy, this guy would have put Lane to shame. He obviously doesn’t like doing this, though, likes it even less than you. You make a mental note to talk with him about it later, once the situation is less dire and you know him better.

Once you were done, you take the man with you to a busy diner, telling him that such a place was best to carry out your next move. Once there, you order yourself and your rescuer some coffee. After the waitress leaves, you take all the wallets and remove the cash, being careful not to disturb the rest of the contents. You hand the cash to your rescuer and tell him to follow you out.

“The coffee-“ he says.

“Hasn’t shown up.” You tell him. At his frown, you grab the cash, slide a five out and leave it on the table.

He follows you out then. Whatever, you weren’t going to bicker over five dollars.

You count the cash as the two of you walk. Just over a thousand. More than enough to get you some clothes and some train or bus tickets. You looked around, and saw an empty paper grocery bag in a trash can and grab it, putting the wallets inside.

“We’ll need to mail the wallets to the police station.” You tell the man. “I’ll do it before we leave town.”

He nods.

“What do we do now?” he asks you. He’s leaving it up to you, leaving you in control. You’re not sure how you feel about that.

“They’ll expect us to run right away, get train tickets somewhere. So we subvert the expectation.” At the man’s quizzical look, you explain. “We stay in Washington for a day or two, long enough that they stop checking on the train and bus stations. They’ll think we’re still in the city after that, and that’s when we buy tickets out of here.”

You’re making this up on the fly, and you hope the man doesn’t notice. You’re using the techniques you used years ago, every time you ran away from home. It almost never worked back then, but you were older now, and you liked to think having some extra years on your side helped.

The man nods. It obviously makes sense.

“Where are we staying?” he asks you.

“Leave it to me. Leave everything to me for now, okay?” You tell him. He looks blank for a moment, and then nods.

* * *

 

You found a motel easily enough. It’s small, dirty, and probably infested with things you’d rather not think about, but you can pay in cash and they don’t ask for ID. You sign yourself and your rescuer in under some aliases you make up on the fly and ask the clerk not tell anyone who calls anything about you or your companion. He readily agrees, but you slip him a fifty anyway for it. After getting the key, you told your rescuer to stay in the room until you returned.

“How will I know it’s you?” he asked.

You show him the peep hole in the door, but he remains unconvinced. Finally, you tell him that you will knock in a distinct pattern: three quick, sharp knocks followed by a five second pause, then two slow knocks. This satisfies him enough that he’s willing to stay in the room while you go talk to the desk clerk.

You ask the desk clerk for directions to the nearest Walmart, and he’s nice enough to draw you a map and tell you it’s open twenty-hour hours, which makes you heave a sigh of relief. You’re planning on two trips, a late night one to assemble a kit of things you might need and one during the day to get some clothes. You figure not getting everything in one trip will make it less easy to detect you. You return to the room, knocking the code so the man will let you in.

“I’m going to leave again at night.” You tell him. “I’ll take the key with me, but I’ll knock in case you’re up.”

The man only nods.

“Hey, you never told me your name.” you tell him.

He looks at you for a long time. He doesn’t speak, and normally that would make you nervous, but he just looks lost.

“I think… I think it’s James.” He tells you finally.

“You think?” you ask him, your mind racing with possibilities as to just who this man is and why your kidnappers wanted him.

“It’s been a long time.” He says simply, and you decide to leave it at that.

“Okay, then. James, you’ll need to trust me. I know you don’t know me from a girl on the street, but you and I are running from… whoever the fuck these people are that kidnapped us. Until we can get away and figure this out, I need you to trust me because I’m going to trust you, okay?”

His eyes look so sad, but he nods and looks away from you.

It’s the best you can do for now.

* * *

 

A few hours later, you head out, taking the room key with you.

“Stay safe,” you tell James. “Don’t open the door for anyone, and don’t leave if you can help it. Watch TV or something till I get back, okay?”

He nods, giving a sidelong, almost distrustful look at the TV in your room. You leave him to it.

When you get to Walmart, you immediately grab a cart and reciting your list in your head. Rubber bands and nails of various sizes, needle-nose pliers, screwdrivers, magnets… You silently thank Lane for teaching you a few tricks before he had gone straight. Between the pickpocketing and the things you would be picking up, you and James could go on the run while keeping your trail cold and your spending to a minimum.

You decide to pick up a backpack as well. No, two, you decide; in case you and James happen to get separated, you’ll each have a backpack filled with the things you’ll need to survive. You spy some school supplies nearby as you put the backpacks in your cart, and decide to pick up a few notebooks and pens. Writing would help with boredom, you decided.

You pass by the sewing and crafts department when a soft cloth tape measure catches your eye. Your eyes light up. You could use the tape measure and get James’s clothing measurements; that way he wouldn’t need to accompany you to the store and potentially draw attention to you. You grab it and throw it in your cart.

You pick up the other things you need, enough to assemble two kits in each backpack. On your way to the checkout, you also grab some lighters and some lighter fluid. _You never know_ , you tell yourself.

You pay for your odd collection of items, keeping a stone face in front of the cashier. Just in case. You weren’t even stealing anything this time, but Lane always told you not to take chances.

You count the cash on your way back to the room. You have just under seven hundred. Your tickets to wherever might slight you back a couple hundred more at the very least, no matter what. If you’re judicious buying clothes tomorrow, you might have enough left over for a motel room wherever you go. Going to a big city will help, perhaps on the west coast. It’s not prime tourist season but you and James can still do some sleight of hand and steal a few wallets. If you hit a big tourist location like Las Vegas, you might be able to pull some of your other moneymaking tricks, the kind Lila and Hayden taught you that they made you promise not to tell Lane about. They called it the trick trap.

The trick trap would be especially easy to pull with James at your side. You could lure a man to your room and subdue him yourself the way you had been taught, but James was probably more skilled at the subduing part. Knock the guy out while he thought he was lucky, steal his wallet and any valuables (“because guys like that always have jewelry on, and it’s never the cheap kind,” you remember Lila saying), and get the guy out of your room and throw his passed-out ass in front of his own hotel, where he’d sleep it off and just call it a lesson learned. You remember Hayden’s credo: keep the cash, ditch the rest of the wallet, pawn the jewelry in a different city.

 Lila and Hayden had taught you how to spot the necessary targets, how to make potential targets pliable. They taught you a lot of things. And now it was finally coming in handy.

When you get back to the room, you knock, but James doesn’t answer. You use the room key to open the door, and when you get inside, you see that James is lying on the bed, asleep. You quietly close the door behind you and sit on the floor to avoid rousing James.

You’ve put your purchases in front of you and are starting to set them up when you hear James stir. He looks over at you on the floor with a confused expression. He blinks a few times, and then the confused look fades.

“You’re back.” He says.

You smile at him. “Yeah, I just needed to pick up some things. I’ll go back in the morning for clothes.” You tell him.

He nods.

“What’s all that for?” he asks, gesturing to the stuff you bought.

“The rubber bands are to remove security tags; so are the needle-nose pliers and screwdrivers, for stubborn ones. The magnets are for the magnetic kind of security tags.” You tell him.

“Security tags?” he asks, looking confused.

“On clothes and stuff.” You say, wondering what planet this guy is from if he doesn’t know what security tags are. “I’m going to level with you, James, being on the run is going to cost money. Sometimes we’re going to have to steal things to make it stretch and stealing’s easier with the proper equipment.”

It’s a modification of Lane and Lila’s speeches on the matter. Hayden never made speeches, she just did. You hadn’t been bad kids then, not really. You just had parents who were less than concerned with you and more with… whatever. So Lane, Lila, and Hayden filled in the gaps for you.

James looks bothered by the whole thing. You wonder what kind of life he led before he was kidnapped.

“I get it.” He says finally. “I just don’t like it. But we need to pull this off.”

You nod and wait for James to continue. He doesn’t, instead picking up a notebook.

“What’re these for?” he asks, and part of you wants to laugh but James looks so innocent and lost at the same time that you keep it back.

“I have a hunch we’ll be on the road a while, yeah?” you say. James nods. “So we need something to help with the boredom. Once our trail’s a little less hot I’ll pick up some books to read, but right now stuff to write with seems like a good idea.”

You go over the rest of the things as you put them in the backpacks, and then you tell James you need his measurements for clothes. You don’t tell him you’ll be getting certain things a size or two larger than normal, for layering purposes or slightly less than honest ones. He lets you take his measurements without complaint.

Once you’re done measuring and taking down the information, you tell James that he can go back to bed.

“Where will you sleep?” he asks.

You look around the room. Other than the bed and the television, there’s a desk and a chair and a bathroom. You could probably sleep in the chair, even if your back would be twisted in knots the next day. The only other time you had been in a motel room, it had been with Lane, Lila, and Hayden, after the four of you had attended a concert with tickets you were sure Lane had stolen.

That motel room had been set up very much like this one. Initially, you and Lila had shared the bed, and Hayden took the chair, though somehow all three of you had ended up in the bed together giggling and sharing stories about the people you met at the concert, too keyed up to sleep. Lane, for his part, had stolen some extra bedsheets and a pillow and slept in the bathtub.

“You take the bed,” you tell him. It’s probably been a while since James has slept in a bed, and you’re not about to insist he take the chair or make a bed out of a dirty bathtub. “I’ll sleep in the chair.”

“No.” James tells you. “You take the bed. I can keep watch, and I’ll sleep when you’re out tomorrow.”

“You’re tired _now_ , James.”

“Fine, then.” At first you think he’s going to take the bed to shut you up, but he folds the covers back on one side and nods at you, stepping aside. “Well?”

“Wouldn’t be the first time I shared a bed with a strange man.” You joke. It’s a lie, but it breaks the tension. James gives you a small smile.

You get into bed. James gets in on the other side. The bed is as comfortable as you expect a motel bed to be, but you manage to fall asleep quickly.

* * *

 

The next day, you went back to Walmart for clothes. Using James’s measurements, you pick him up a couple pairs of thick and sturdy jeans, essentials like underwear and socks, a pack of undershirts and thermals, a few t-shirts, and a red and black plaid button-up. You grab some shorts and tank tops, too, in case you head somewhere warmish after this. You’re contemplating winter coats when you notice someone’s been following you.

It could be someone on the store’s loss prevention team, or it could be those people who kidnapped you and James. You decide to stay alert. You pick out a winter coat for James in the largest size they have and keep going.

You start to pick out clothes for yourself. You grab a pair of men’s jeans in your size; Hayden told you the looser fit of men’s jeans on a woman helped conceal weapons and smaller items that you could hide.

You keep looking for clothes for yourself, while keeping an eye on your mystery follower. By the time you make it over to women’s underwear, you hear it. The unmistakable sound of a walkie-talkie from somewhere on the follower’s person. You don’t heave a sigh of relief just yet. All signs point to a loss prevention person, but you can’t relax for a minute until you’re out of D.C.

The person tries to appear nonchalant as they wander off after the walkie-talkie goes off, but you’re keyed up. You quickly head to the shoe department, pick up sneakers and boots for James and yourself, and head to checkout. You had originally planned to at least steal the underwear and shirts, but the encounter with the mystery person has you spooked. You’ll be buying everything, this time at least.

When you get back to the hotel room with your bags of purchases, James is writing in one of the notebooks. He doesn’t look up even when you unceremoniously drop the bags to the floor. He’s probably writing something important, you figure, rummaging through the bags to lay out an outfit for him when he finally notices you.

He finally looks up as you pack up the rest of the clothes in the backpacks.

“You’re back.” He says.

“Yeah. We need to talk.”

You tell him about your mystery follower, that it could have just been an employee, but neither of you believe in coincidences. James puts his notebooks away, and looks at the outfit you laid out for him.

“Get changed,” you tell him. “I’ll change in the bathroom. After that, we’re putting on our coats and getting out of here.”

He nods. He understands, probably better than you do, that time is of the essence.

* * *

 

By the time you get to the station, it’s late afternoon and very crowded. Perfect, you think; it will make you harder to spot on surveillance.

You stole two wallets on your walk to the station, netting a couple hundred more. It should be enough.

You explained your plan to James on the way to the station. You would go up to the ticket counter, and order three bus tickets. James would go to a different ticket counter and do the same thing. One pair would be to a decoy location; two of the tickets would be to another, separate location each; and the last pair would be to your real location. Once you had the tickets, you would divest yourself of the decoys and use your real ones. You felt bad for the people you would be tricking to get your kidnappers off your tail, but it was necessary.

You manage to divest yourself of the Kansas City tickets easily when you hear a couple complaining about having lost their tickets. You give them yours with a smile, lying and saying you found the tickets outside a restroom. The couple are so grateful to you they rush to catch their bus, not taking time to check that the tickets are indeed theirs.

The ticket James had bought to New York City was even easier to get rid of. As the bus was boarding, you bumped into a woman who was waiting to board and sent her things crashing. You used your time apologizing and helping her gather her things to swipe her real ticket and replace it with the one you had bought.

James watched both of your acts from the waiting area. He was clearly amused at how well you planned and adapted to get rid of the decoy tickets.

The ticket you had bought for Boston, you gave to a young girl in the station; you had heard about her talking about her family in Boston and how she wanted to go home; you could clearly see she was some kind of runaway. She didn’t seem mentally ill, and even though it would set your kidnappers on her tail briefly, you hoped that they would leave her alone once they saw she was no threat.

The last tickets you had left were a pair to Las Vegas. Once you explained your other method of getting money to James, he had bristled but said it was probably best to head somewhere where you could do your thing and stock up on money.

You looked at James as the two of you waited for your bus to announce boarding. You didn’t quite totally trust each other yet, but you would have to get there quickly if you expected to be able to outrun these people after you.

You hear the now boarding announcement for your bus. You look over to James and he nods at you. The two of you stand from your seats in unison and begin your walk to the boarding area.


End file.
